Cheesecake

When she called with the news, I felt helpless. Here I was delighting in discovering my new hometown – a place with art, and architecture, and music, and tourists – and my friend was hurting, miles away. She had suffered one of those losses for which words are useless, and physical gestures are the primary means through which you can show your support. Hugs. A prepared meal. Comfortable silence. All things you can’t do from across the country.

I considered sending flowers, but it felt wrong. It wasn’t Valentine’s day, and she had never been one for flowers. Flowers die. Giving her loss after The Loss would be like shining a spotlight on the emotional ripples that would flow from this event over the next weeks.

I thought about a fruit basket, but that didn’t seem right either. You can’t say “I love you and I want to comfort you” with fruit. Fruit is an aspirational gift. It’s a healthy gift, maybe in the best of circumstances a gift of decadence, but there is no comfort in a basket of fruit.

I wanted to send her…a cheesecake. Gooey and sweet, cheesecake said “be nice to yourself…don’t try so hard to do things right for a little while…surrender to goodness, because things will be good again someday.” Cheesecake was the only way I knew how to wrap her in love from miles away.

“Am I crazy?” I wondered. It seemed like the right thing to do, but maybe no one else would understand what I was trying to do.

“It’s not a party,” said my mom. “You could send flowers.”

“That’s weird,” said my boyfriend.

“Perfect,” said my best friend. And that was all I needed. This was right.

Of course, it couldn’t be just any cheesecake. If I was going to send a Cheesecake to Heal the Soul, it must be the perfect cheesecake, the cheesecake that would speak directly to her – the platonic form of Cheesecake.

“Best…cheesecake…you...can…order…on…the…Internet…” I murmured as I typed. What did people do before the Internet search? I idly wondered, waiting to see the results.

No…no…and I am completely uninterested in the location of the nearest Cheesecake Factory, Internet. Don’t you understand? I’m not engaging in a desperate search for a chain restaurant here. This is cosmic.

Yes! Gerald’s Heavenly Cheesecakes. This is it. This is the cheesecake. I browsed the photos and selected a classic – chocolate chip cheesecake, topped with fat, glossy brown chocolate chips. This is the cheesecake.

As I confirmed my order, my stomach quivered and my heart began to beat faster in my chest. I had just sent LOVE. With a credit card and a computer, I had instructed a baker in Atlanta, Georgia, to put my love in a box and send it to my friend. Separated by distance and time, unable to make those connections that happen outside of words typed on a keyboard or spoken through a phone, I had discovered another way to be there, to convey myself to someone when I knew she needed it.

I thought of the rest of my friends and family back home. The people who I loved, who I missed spending time with. The people whose absence I still felt in my body after having only been gone from home for a few weeks.

Suddenly I had to let them know that I was still with them, that I loved them, and that we were still part of each other. I yanked my purse back onto my lap and fished my credit card from the debris.

“Gerald,” I said, as I’m sure my pupils dilated and my face began to take on a manic glow. “Get ready to make some cheesecake.”

I began to click like a fiend, zeroing in on the screen with laser focus. I was oblivious to the minutes flying by, so absorbed in my quest for the perfect cake. I typed and searched as if compelled, clicking first on the cookies and cream, then the peanut butter explosion, the blueberry, and finally the banana cream pie. The perfect cake, carefully selected for each of my people and loaded with meaning. “I know you,” they said. “I want good things for you….I want you to have your favorite flavor at your doorstep and waiting to make you smile with surprise. I want you to be happy. You are mine, and I cannot be there for you, but I will give you what I can.”

Purchases confirmed, a leaned back in my chair and smiled in satisfaction. I did this. This was a good thing. I have brought happiness.

But as the inspiration began to fade, and the receipts collected in my inbox for $40, $60….a total that I will not reveal here….an uncomfortable knot of embarrassment began to grow in my stomach. Red-cheeked, I ignored it, but I knew I had fooled myself. When her cheesecake arrived, smashed and melted, my mother wouldn’t see my love for her. She would see a banana cream mess, and she wouldn’t know why I had done it to her or what to do with it. The cookies and cream for my nephew, the newborn baby who I had never held, wouldn’t speak volumes about my craving to squeeze him.

That night my boyfriend shook his head and covered his eyes when he heard my story, and I knew the gesture had been futile. Cake would never say what words could not, and as I well knew, words could not create the connection of two beings in proximity, cells alerted to each other’s presence, hearts beating rhythms to each other through the air. Nearness cannot be purchased any more than it can be spoken. Even in the presence of another, it can’t be forced or manufactured. The elusive unspoken connection of friends and family should be handled with care. Bask in it when you have it, and remember it when you do not.